run the risk
by bravevulnerability
Summary: Castle escapes to Vegas for the weekend to "clear his head". Beckett ends up on the first flight out to sin city to change his mind. Set immediately before 4x20, The Limey. Three shot.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Written for the tumblr anon who wanted to know what would happen if Beckett followed Castle to Vegas pre-Limey, married him, and the repercussions that would follow once they returned home.

* * *

**Set immediately before 4x20, The Limey.**

* * *

Kate remembers to turn her phone back on once she's in the taxi she hailed at the airport, wincing at the landslide of notifications that fill her screen. Most of them are from Lanie, texts and calls alike, and perhaps sending a text that she was heading to Vegas for the weekend right before boarding the plane wasn't her best idea.

Beckett sighs and tucks the phone back into her pocket, still not sure what the hell she's doing here.

It had been Alexis, of all people, who had contacted her mere hours ago. The girl wasn't happy with her, wasn't exactly thrilled to be speaking with Kate at all, but her concern for her father was greater than her strengthening grudge towards Beckett, the woman who had unknowingly broken his heart.

"I don't know what happened between the two of you, but I can't stand seeing him like this anymore," Alexis had stated as soon as Kate had opened her front door. Alexis hadn't made any move to come in, remaining stiff and aggitated in doorway, her face pinched, her hands in fists at her sides, and steely determination radiating from her tense figure. "All he does now is come home, get drunk, and fall asleep at his desk and I know it's because of you. I don't know what you did or what he did, but one of you needs to grow up and apologize or confront each other or just - _whatever. _Do whatever you need to do," his daughter had practically pleaded, exasperation in her eyes as Kate had stared back at her, stunned and confused. "If you care about him at all, just tell him or let him go. Just stop hurting him."

Kate had remained frozen in the doorway for a long moment after his daughter had turned on her heel and strode down the hall.

Ever since the bombing case, Castle had been acting strange, cold and distant, and after hearing of the state he was in in his own home, in front of his daughter, there was only one valid reason that came to mind.

He knew.

She had dashed out of her apartment, found Alexis on the street before she could disappear in the crowd, and swore to fix it, offering to make the trip back with her to the loft to meet with him. But Alexis had shaken her head, snagging a notebook from the messenger bag on her shoulder and scribbling down information, his hotel and his room number as she revealed he had gone to Vegas for the weekend to "clear his head".

And that is how Kate Beckett had ended up on the first flight out to sin city.

She has the cab driver drop her off at the hotel he's staying at but doesn't check in, assuring the woman at the front desk she's only come to meet someone.

She finds that someone in the connected casino, a drink in his hand and a blonde on his arm, a picture of the man she had balked at four years ago. She doesn't like that man very much; she wants the one hiding beneath back.

Kate doesn't even hesitate.

"Planning to get lucky, Castle?"

He startles, some of the alcohol in his glass splashing from the tumbler, onto the blonde woman's sparkling dress.

"Ricky," she hisses, stepping back and blotting at her dress with a napkin while Beckett represses a smirk.

But it's easy to bite back a smile when he's glaring at her, the momentary surprise in his eyes fading beneath the surge of irritation, and it hurts her, to witness how much he has changed, what her lie has done to him, to them.

"What are you doing here, Beckett?" he mutters, spitting her name like acid, but Kate steps in closer, between him and the disgruntled blonde still fretting over the mild stain on her party dress.

"Taking a gamble," she shrugs, standing right in front of him. She doesn't fit in here, still in her pantsuit from work, still wearing her heels that elevate her to his eye level. "I need to talk to you."

"You're out of luck," he chuckles, but the sound is dark, hollowed out and free of amusement, but no way did she just fly across the country to be brushed off.

"Rick," she pleads, softer, lifting a hand to his chest when he makes an attempt to walk past her.

"Is this the woman you came here to forget about?" the blonde inquires, poking her head over Kate's shoulder and Beckett bristles, resists the urge to jab her elbow into the other woman's ribs. "The one I was going to _help _you forget about?"

The sultry tone of the woman's voice has her stiffening, head jerking over her shoulder to glare at the bimbette who shrinks a bit under her narrowed gaze.

"You wanted to forget me?" Kate mumbles, glancing back to him with her heart shredding itself against her ribs as the other woman's words sink in.

Castle lifts his fingers to his eye sockets, pressing down hard, but Kate nudges in closer, eradicating the boundaries of her touch and nudging her knee between his, curling her hands at his wrists and tugging them down.

"If you don't want to remember," he gets out, his voice rough and scratchy, but his eyes sharp and steady. "Then neither do I. Now if you don't mind, Jacinda and I-"

"_Jacinda_?" she growls, holding tight to his wrists when he looks past her, plastering on a charming smile she's seen in too many newspaper articles.

"Beckett, let me-"

"I remember every second," she snaps, earning the pierce of his gaze, fierce and fighting, but good, she wants to fight. She wants to fight hard for him. "I remember what you said."

"Then why did you _lie_?" he bites out, demands, and she struggles with the excuses, the instinctive urge to run.

"Because I wasn't _ready_, because I wanted to be more, because I wanted you and I didn't want to ruin it," she says, finally says it all, and feels the tight knot of panic in her chest, right beneath her scar, begin to loosen as the rage in his eyes starts to recede, the hard lines that she had inadvertently carved into his face softening.

"Wanted me?" he echoes and Beckett nods, letting go of his wrists to glide her hands along his forearms, up to the tense muscles of his biceps.

"Want," she corrects, drifting in all too easily when he places tentative hands at her waist. "I wouldn't have flown out here for anything less."

There are still hints of uncertainty hiding in his eyes, apprehension she yearns to abolish, but most of the anger is gone, the wounded betrayal as well, and her eyes flicker to his mouth-

"Um, Ricky?"

Kate tightens her fingers on his arms, but he slips his hand beneath her blazer, under her blouse, spans his fingers at her lower back, his warm palm heating the base of her spine and sending electricity climbing up her vertebrae.

"Jacinda, I'm sorry, but I just-"

"Oh, no worries, sweetie. I totally understand and really, I'm so happy you two could work things out!" Jacinda beams from behind her, her jovial voice grating on Beckett's nerves. "But you know, I have an entire night left of this layover, so if you're still looking for some fun, maybe all three of us could-"

Was she really…? Oh no, definitely not.

Kate's hands abandon his arms in favor of his face, coiling around his ears and jerking his mouth to hers, claiming his lips in a kiss that shows him and the bimbette at her back exactly what she thinks of _that _proposition.

He was hers.

She nips hard at his bottom lip, punishes with the bite of her teeth, and soothes with the heat of her tongue when he groans low in his throat, using the hands at her waist to haul her body against his, fitting her tight and close against the hard wall of his chest, the firm muscles of his thighs.

"I don't share," she growls, grinning when his eyes slide open, black and swimming with lust as she releases him to answer the woman still watching them with a raised brow. "So we're going to have to decline."

Kate steals one of Castle's hands from her waist and guides him out of the casino, out into the sea of lights the city has to offer.

* * *

The next morning, she wakes in his bed, a brutal headache radiating through her skull while the man at her side radiates heat along her naked skin.

For just a second, her body stiffens in panic, but then slowly, it all comes back, the memories streaming in, abolishing the tension limb by limb until she's relaxed beside him once more. But the nerves don't cease to exist, the uncertainty alive as she withdraws her hand from beneath the bedsheets.

The ring on her left hand shines in the sunlight breaching the curtains he forgot to close.

Kate rolls on her side, finds his left hand with ease, outstretched towards her, and brings the second piece of evidence out to match with hers, twining their fingers and watching the rings clink together in union. They got married last night.

"Kate," he mumbles, face still half mashed into the pillow, and she lowers their tangled hands back to the mattress, reaches with her right to card her fingers through his disheveled hair.

Castle hums at the touch, a gentle smile spreading along his lips before his brow creases and he's squinting an eye open.

"It… wasn't a dream?" he murmurs, blinking a couple of times before pushing up onto his elbows, staring back at her with wide, clear blue eyes despite the hangover she knows he must share.

"No," she chuckles softly, biting her lip as she stares up at him. "You definitely weren't dreaming."

She squeezes his hand and he glances down, lips parting at the sight of the wedding bands.

"We - oh we got married."

"We did," she nods, trying not to laugh at the awed yet panicked expression on his face, trying not to recognize the insecurity that blooms at the latter. "You don't remember that part?"

"I do," he assures her quickly. "I definitely remember, I just - why aren't you freaking out?"

Kate sighs and sits up, allowing the sheet to pool in her lap and flicking his ear when he fails to lift his gaze from her chest.

"You saw it all last night," she huffs as he rises alongside her, his bare chest against her shoulder as he brushes a kiss to her cheek, and oh, she could get used to this.

"And you actually believe that's enough?" he hums in her ear and she buries her grin in her bent knees before he starts something that requires no talking at all.

They need to talk about this; no more sinning by silence for either of them.

"I know we were kind of drunk," she begins, fiddling with her hands, spinning the ring on her finger while she speaks. "And I know it's too soon, that we - that there was a lot we should have done before we took a step like this-"

"Kate, I can get it annulled within the hour if that's what you want," he murmurs, brushing his hand along her shoulder in comfort, reassurance. "We can just… call this a trial run, practice for the real thing."

Her heart flutters at that and she turns her head, rests her cheek on her patella as she meets his eyes, so soft and understanding, ready to act on whatever she decides.

"Planning to marry me again down the line?"

Castle shrugs, circles his thumb at the top of her vertebrae. "If that's what you want."

"You're that sure of me?" she whispers, pulling her knees in tighter against her chest. "Even after… after the whole reason we ended up here."

"You lied," he nods, his face so very serious, contemplative. "And I handled the truth of that wrong, but if anything, this pretty much sealed the deal for me."

Her brow furrowed. "How?"

"I tried to stop, turn off my feelings for you," he admits. "But it was never going to work, and when you flew out here - no one's ever done that sort of thing for me. No one's ever… no one's ever loved me that much," he breathes, casting shy eyes down to his own knees, but Kate curls in closer at his side, presses her lips to his shoulder.

She did love him, so much more than she ever could have known.

"The second I saw you in the casino, it just confirmed it. I was never getting over you whether you wanted me or not." A small smile flickers across his lips, a trace of sadness to it that she immediately wants to eliminate with the newfound privilege of kissing him. "I've loved you for a while, Kate. I'm not saying it will be easy, not all the time, but you… I just want you."

Beckett untangles the sheet from around her waist, tugging it from his as well, and crawls into his lap, embracing this wonderful intimacy that is still so new but so right, and framing his face in her hands, abrading her palms on his stubble and brushing her fingers at the wrinkles extending from his eyes.

"I love you too, Rick," she murmurs, finding beauty in the light that fills his eyes at her words. "And I don't regret a single thing we did last night, so I see no reason for an annulment."

Castle's hands span her lower back, caressing the smooth expanse of skin, the ridge of her spine. "Really?"

Beckett nods, smudges a kiss to his mouth before nudging on his chest, pushing him onto his back.

"Now, time for morning sex with your wife, yeah?"


	2. Chapter 2

She'd bought a one way ticket yesterday, uncertain of how long it would take her to find him, convince him of the truth, and drag him back to New York with her. She definitely had not expected to complete her mission in a single night, hadn't exactly planned on marrying him either.

Castle books her a seat on his flight and she doesn't protest, a strange sense of pride flaring in her chest as they board the plane together hand in hand.

"What are we going to tell everyone?"

The question cleans the pride from her insides, replaces it with the uncertainty she's been ignoring since she woke up this morning.

"I don't know," she sighs, taking a seat beside him in the first class accommodations, a flash of déjà vu rattling through her bones. Nearly a year ago, she was in practically this exact same position, but the difference between then and now is spectacular.

Then she was hiding in a relationship with another man, mourning the death of her training officer, and fearing even the possibility of an 'if only' with the man currently sitting beside her. Now that man is her husband.

"But it'll be okay," Kate assures him, buckling her seatbelt as the pilot begins to speak. "I hope."

"No, no, you're right," Rick nods, intent on convincing them both now. "Lanie and the boys will all be happy for us. So will my mother and Alexis… Alexis will understand with explanation and time."

Kate bites her lip, drops her head to his shoulder at the idea of his daughter learning how she ended up "fixing it". If Alexis didn't hate her before, she definitely would when they landed in New York.

"Seriously, Kate, she'll be-"

"Hey you two!"

Beckett stiffens at the unmistakable voice a woman she'd grown to despise from the moment she saw her plastered to Castle's side the night before.

"Jacinda," Castle greets, wincing, Kate notices as she lifts her head. "I didn't know you'd be an attendant for this flight."

"Yep," the woman chirps, flipping her perfectly curled blonde hair over her shoulder. "And if y'all need _anything_, you just call me, okay?"

Kate grits her teeth, but Castle merely slides his hand to rest atop her knee, squeezing gently on the bone.

"We'll keep that in mind, thanks."

Jacinda shoots them one last beaming smile before sauntering back down the aisle.

"Of all the women you could have picked to-" Her grumble of irritation is cut off by the press of his fingers to her jaw, turning her face towards him before smearing his mouth over hers, eradicating the words left on her tongue with the stroke of his.

"I wasn't being picky, I was being stupid," he mumbles around the nip of his teeth to her bottom lip. "I thought - I was hurt and I wanted you out of my system, but - Kate, you're not going anywhere. You never were."

Her breath is caught in her throat, her mind spinning as the plane takes off and his hand clenches a little harder at her knee as they ascend into the sky. She notices his breath is caught too, but for a different reason, and she leans across the thin armrest separating them, pushes her forehead to rest against his jaw while her lips dust along the taut skin beneath the bone, feeling the familiar pride from earlier trickle through her veins as he relaxes at the distraction of her touch, rubbing his thumb over her kneecap in appreciation.

It's still so new, this transition from partners to more - to lovers, to husband and wife (it's going to take her a long while to get used to that part) and all in less than 24 hours, but she already revels in this newfound intimacy, this recently established ability to speak through actions, to reassure him with more than a fleeting touch of her hand or a smile that is too carefully constructed.

"I'm not going anywhere," she echoes once the plane reaches the set altitude and the soft chime resounds through the aircraft that signals the removal of seat belts and freedom to roam.

His smile is crooked, proud and happy - the smile he rarely lets anyone see, the one he tends to hide beneath those attractive grins his mouth has memorized for the media, but it's this smile that she loves. The smile that he reserves for her. "Love you, Mrs. Castle."

A laugh bubbles past her lips at that, surprised and just a little hysterical, and she has to lift a hand to her mouth to contain it, uses the other to smack his shoulder when he begins laughing _at _her. "I can't believe we got married," she whispers.

"Definitely still feels like a dream," he concedes, resting his neck back against the cushioned seat, but keeping his gaze trained on her, adoring but with a hint of worry.

"Good dream?" she clarifies, pulling one of her knees up on the wide seat, orientating her body towards his.

The apprehension leaks from his eyes then, the traces of grey draining from the pools of blue, making room for flecks of gold that she doesn't think she's ever seen before. His hand curls around her bent knee, fingers hooking between her thigh and her calf.

"Best dream I ever had."

She's tempted to steal his hand from her leg, lean forward and whisper in his ear, convince him to meet her in the tiny airport bathroom in a few minutes, but before she can follow through-

"Oh my goodness!" Jacinda exclaims, practically _squeals,_ standing in the aisle with an armful of peanuts and a wide eyed expression of exaggerated shock. "You two got married?"

* * *

Jacinda is the first to react to their newlywed status, but she is most definitely not the last.

As soon as they land, Kate receives a call from dispatch, the address to a crime scene in the middle of the airport, but Castle doesn't hesitate, leading her to the parking lot by the hand.

"Seriously?" she scoffs when they come to a stop in front of his cherry red Ferrari.

"What?" Castle huffs, puffing out his chest while she rolls her eyes, snatches the keys dangling from his fingertips. "Hey, wait-"

"I've driven it before, haven't I?"

His eyes flash at that, indigo spilling through the irises, and then he's stepping into her, pressing her up against the gleaming front door of the sports car, dragging his mouth along her jaw without preamble until he reaches the heated shell of her ear.

"Do not put the image of that night in my head if you want to get to your crime scene on time," he mumbles, teasing the lobe of her ear between his teeth, before drawing back, but her arms at his waist, fists at his back, halt his progress, coaxes the words from him with ease. "I wanted you so badly that night, Kate. You wore that dress and then you drove my car, handled it better than I do, and the entire time, the skin of your legs was exposed, your thighs-"

She surges into him, damns the prospect of being late in favor of his mouth, the lips already swollen from a day's worth of her attention, in favor of making up for lost time when she could have been his.

"Crime scene," he gets out, panting around the aggressive pierce of her teeth, the possessive plunge of her tongue. "Kate-"

"Wanted you too," she recalls, breathless, still clinging to the fabric of his shirt. "We'd kissed, that week before-"

Castle groans, buries his face in her neck.

"And I couldn't stop thinking about it," she confesses, leaning into the support of the car at her back when his mouth opens over the pound of her pulse. It feels so foreign, so out of her comfort zone, to talk about things they had once sworn off without speaking a word. Mm, but she'll tell him everything he's ever wanted to know if this is what she earns in reward. "The way you tasted-"

"You moaned," he mumbles into her skin. "You kissed back hard, with everything - it was never a ruse."

"No," she gasps, hips jerking at the scrape of his teeth along her flesh. "Real. Too real. But I was with-"

Her spine arcs when he bites her, laves the nip to the side of her throat with his tongue, and they should really get in the car, stop making out in an airport parking garage like teenagers, but every time she thinks of reaching for the door handle, his mouth is doing something distracting and her fingers end up buried in his hair.

"Not anymore," he husks into that spot behind her ear that causes her spine to shiver. "No more boyfriends-"

"No more flight attendants," she growls. "Or ex-wives."

"No, none of that. No more ex-wives. Only you. Third time's the charm, remember?"

Her heart flutters at the memory, the romance of Ryan's wedding and the easy joy she had found in being Castle's plus one filling her chest with the same ridiculous butterflies she had felt back then.

Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her blazer and she sighs, knowing it's time to go, but captures one last kiss from his upturned lips.

"Definitely."

* * *

They have to stop by her apartment to grab a scarf.

"Your fault," he shrugs as Beckett slides back into the driver's seat, glaring at him while she shifts the car into drive. "You started the verbal foreplay."

Kate scoffs and pulls into traffic, rechecking the address on her phone and changing lanes. "I did not. You just can't keep your mouth to yourself."

Castle reaches over to adjust her haphazardly arranged scarf around her neck, covering the purpling bruise now staining her throat.

"Doesn't matter, no one will see it."

She chuckles, flicking her eyes to the hands on the leather steering wheel, wiggling her left set of fingers. "I think a hickey is the least of our worries when it comes to what people will notice when they see us together, Castle."

She's right. Arriving at the crime scene in his Ferrari is enough to raise some eyebrows, earning a disgruntled look from Esposito and a surprised but equally relieved expression from Ryan.

"Hey guys," he greets, notebook in his hand and a little boy smile on his face, but as luck would have it, Ryan's eyes catch on the gleam of Castle's ring in the glow of the seedy hotel's neon lights right away. The fellow detective's gaze is flying to her hand next and then his jaw is falling open.

"Ryan," she warns, but Esposito is already approaching at the prolonged greeting, his eyes eventually following Ryan's to the sight they're riveted upon.

"Holy shit."

"We can explain?" Castle tries, but Kate already has her sights set on the crime scene, inhaling deep in preparation to face a dead body and the wrath of her best friend.

"You can explain here," Beckett corrects, patting his chest before drifting towards the yellow crime scene tape. "I'll be explaining to Lanie."

"Thanks a lot, dear," she hears him grumble, but her lips quirk once her back is turned.

"Hey Lanie, what've we got?"

"Oh no you don't," Lanie snaps, pointing her ballpoint pen accusingly in Kate's direction. "You better explain to me why the hell you were in Vegas on Saturday night and couldn't answer any of my calls, but can apparently come around for a dead body. Nuh-uh, honey. You talk and then I'll tell you about our girl here."

Kate sighs, opens her mouth to speak, but Lanie starts up again before she can.

"Start with what you were doing in _Las Vegas_. What on earth would prompt you to fly there of all places? Unless... oh honey, is it Castle? Is it that bad? Were you trying to get over him by-"

"Get over me?" Castle scoffs, strolling inside the hotel room, wincing at the sight of the dead woman on the floor, carefully meandering around her to stand beside Beckett. "The opposite actually."

Lanie raises an eyebrow and Beckett scans the room, waiting for the CSU tech to step out before she takes Castle's left hand in her own, gives the familiar fingers a squeeze for courage, and thrusts their tangled digits over the dead body.

Lanie drops her clipboard.

"You did not..."

"We did," Castle grins, wide and proud, drifting in close enough to Kate that she feels the heat of his chest at her back.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett, I am going to-"

"Houghton, hmm, should have added that in while I was proposing. Beautiful middle name," Castle muses from over her shoulder and Kate buries her face in her hands.

They're at a crime scene for god's sake.

"Lanie, after this case, I swear I'll fill you in."

Lanie scowls but reclaims her clipboard, regains respect for the dead woman on the floor, but grudgingly agrees. "I want every single detail."

"Hey, not _every _detail," Castle cuts in, brushing his knuckles along Beckett's spine, out of view from Lanie, but she still elbows him away in reprimand.

"We still have to tell everyone," Kate murmurs, keeping her voice down. "So believe me, I'm not keeping it from you, it was just..."

"Unplanned," Castle fills in for her, gripping her hip in support this time.

Lanie still appears a little stunned at the news, a little bitter at knowing about their impromptu marriage a day late, but finally, her best friend sighs, rises from her knees.

"And this is real?" she clarifies, waving her pen between them. "Not some drunken White Chapel marriage that'll be annulled by next week."

"No," Kate answers, the defensive hint to her voice unexpected and causing Lanie's eyebrow to arch high once more, but also earning a slow spreading smile from her lips. "It wasn't planned, but it was - it's real. We may do a more proper wedding down the line, but for now, this is enough."

Castle grunts when Lanie manages to throw her arms around both of them, hooking one at Kate's neck and the other at Castle's shoulder, but Kate embraces her in return, meets Castle's eyes over her best friend's head and sighs in relief at his soft smile while he pats the medical examiner's back.

"Then I'm happy for you, both of you, for finally opening your damn eyes. But the next wedding, I'm your maid of honor, Kate Beckett. Do you hear me?"

"Deal," Kate chuckles as Lanie steps back, her eyes shining, setting Kate's nerves at ease.

This is the easy part, telling their friends. Telling Martha, her dad, Alexis... those will be the real tests, but for now, it's okay. It's enough.


	3. Chapter 3

"Dad," Alexis's exhale of relief is the first sound Kate hears upon stepping into his loft with him, catches the flash of red hair as she rushes in from the living room to greet him with a hug. "I was so worried. You weren't answering your phone and-"

His daughter pauses when she notices Kate over his shoulder, her brow furrowed, but the worry lines crowding her face fading. "Oh, Detective Beckett. Hi."

"Hi Alexis," she returns, trying for a timid smile that she's sure resembles something more along the lines of a grimace. She really doesn't want his kid to hate her.

"So," Alexis starts, drifting towards the kitchen and Rick takes Beckett's hand when she hesitates in the foyer, offering her fingers the reassuring embrace of his own and following his daughter's lead into the conversational area of their home. "What happened between you two in Vegas?"

It's Castle who tenses now, pausing in his tracks while the surprise spreads from his eyes to his open mouth. "How did you-"

"Alexis is the one who told me how to find you," Kate informs him, stepping out from behind him to stand at his side. "Thank you again for that, by the way."

His daughter shrugs at the words of appreciation while she pours herself a glass of juice from the fridge. "Seems like it was the right thing to do?" Blue eyes that match her father's lift from the glass in question, searching for confirmation, and Beckett gives it to her.

"It was the best thing you could have done," she confirms, releasing Castle's hand to join Alexis in the kitchen, remaining cautious, but taking a stand on the opposite side of the island. "For us, anyway, but what about you?"

Alexis stills, nearly startles, almost spilling the berry flavored juice all over the marble surface between them.

"What do you mean?" she asks, screwing the cap back on the juice bottle and meeting Kate's gaze with sharp, skeptical eyes, ready to attack.

"I know I'm not your favorite person right now," Kate begins, offering a small smile at the fierce blush that claims Alexis' cheeks. "And my actions over the recent months may not have proven it, but I do love your dad."

Castle makes a move to join in, to enter the bubble of the kitchen, but Kate flutters her hand at her side, beneath the shield of the island, begging him to hold back for just a moment longer.

"And you're asking... for my permission to - to love him?" Alexis returns, brow scrunching again, but those piercing eyes are softening just a fraction.

"Not necessarily," Kate shrugs, keeping her left hand balled in a fist at her thigh to refrain from fidgeting her fingers and revealing their secret too soon. "I won't stop loving him regardless, but I know it would make things easier on all of us if you were okay with the relationship."

Alexis lowers her gaze, following the trace of her index finger around the rim of her cup. "Why do you even care? You'll do what you want anyway."

"Alexis," Castle warns and her shoulders hunch, but Alexis doesn't look up from her glass.

"Because I care about you, your opinions, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable," Kate answers, biting her lip as the ring on her finger begins to feel like a dead weight.

Alexis finally lifts her eyes to Beckett, still cold and assessing, but reachable, willing to be swayed.

"It doesn't make me uncomfortable," Alexis admits, propping her elbows on the surface of the island. "If Dad is happy, I'm happy. I just don't want - I don't want last summer again."

Kate swallows hard, forces her mind to refrain from reeling into memories from that summer, the months of pain and trauma, both physical and emotional, inflicted on both parties and all the collateral damage that has come of it.

"I promise you," Beckett murmurs, taking a breath before breaching the small space between them to cover the top of Alexis' hand for only a moment. "That'll never happen. Not again."

The younger woman's shoulders visibly deflate at the promise, but then her eyes flicker down to Kate's hand still next to hers and her eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets.

"Oh my god," she gasps, grabbing Kate's wrist to examine the simple gold band before jerking her gaze towards her father's exposed hand as well. "You - how - this isn't-"

"It's not what I intended on doing when I flew out to find him," Kate begins, trying for calm, hoping and praying for calm, for all the progress they just made in this kitchen to remain intact. "It was spur of the moment and-"

"Stupid?" Alexis finishes, but Castle strides in, stands between the two of them.

"Unplanned, yes. Stupid, no," Castle corrects, narrowing his eyes on her, the look of warning a parent gives a child when on the verge of misbehaving. But Alexis isn't a child anymore.

"How could you?" she demands. "After two failed marriages, I thought you would know-"

"Kate is not your mother, or Gina," he states, firm and leaving no room for argument - the closest to discipline Beckett has ever witnessed Alexis receive. "I admit we should have waited a little while longer, until we were back home and could have you and Gram and all of our friends surrounding us, but this was not a mistake, Pumpkin. And I want you to be happy, to be okay with this, but if you aren't... we're all just going to have to deal with it."

Alexis' lower lip begins to tremble, the girl she remembers meeting four years ago shining through, still so young and innocent and easily moved to tears. "She makes you happy? Still makes you happy?" Alexis asks, demands through the whimpering rasp of her voice, and relief washes over Rick's face as he sweeps his daughter up into his arms, presses a kiss to the top of her head.

"Yes," he murmurs, rocking her back and forth in his embrace. "She does."

Alexis blinks a few times before she turns her head, looks to Kate with the gentle beginnings of a weary smile.

"Okay."

Kate physically sinks against the edge of the island, her lungs expanding as she smiles back at his daughter. They weren't necessarily out of the woods yet, not by a long shot. She still had to inform her captain about her change in marital status, still owed their friends a better explanation than the summarized version they had given at the crime scene, and still had to talk to her dad. God, she's going to be nauseous just thinking about all of it. But they had his daughter's tentative approval, and it strengthened her belief that this could actually work.

She could be his wife and maybe, just maybe, they could have a happily ever after.

* * *

"I don't have anything to wear," Kate realizes aloud, standing at the threshold that separates his office from his bedroom. When he had asked her to come home with him after hours at the precinct workings their latest case, she hadn't hesitated. Spending the night hadn't been mentioned, only the intention of approaching Alexis and his mother about the marriage as a team, but now it was eleven o'clock at night and she had to be back in the precinct bright and early and a subway ride home didn't sound the least bit appealing.

But entering his bedroom for the first time, as his wife, provides a foreign excitement as well as unexpected intimidation.

"Oh, I have some stuff you could wear," Castle assures her, diverging off of his path to the en suite bathroom to stop in front of a cherry wood dresser, sliding open one of the drawers and rummaging through the contents. "I have a ton of t-shirts you could sleep in, sweatshirts too if you prefer, and there are boxers in here," he adds, tugging open another drawer.

Kate finally steps deeper inside his bedroom, admires the stylish decor, the underlying masculinity, the massive centerpiece of the bed. It isn't necessarily what she had expected, not the bachelor pad bedroom she had secretly attempted to picture a handful of times over the last four years, but she finds the room is more _him_ than she ever would have imagined, pieces of his personality displayed in the canvas paintings on the wall, the picture frames decorating his nightstand. She could be happy existing in a room like this.

"I know we haven't talked about it - well, there are a lot of things, actually, that we still have to talk about..." His sentence trails, a worrisome furrow creasing his brow, but he shakes it off, returns his eyes to her. "And we don't have to discuss any of it tonight, but when you're ready to move in, we can redecorate. Make this yours." Castle offers her a tentative smile, but his hands are wringing out one of the sleep shirts he extracted from the bureau.

Just as nervous as she is.

"Ours," she decides to correct, untangling her scarf from around her neck and draping it over the armchair next to the large walk in closet before padding towards him, watching his shoulders relax more the closer she comes. Kate slips her arms around his neck once she's standing before him, rises on her bare toes to reach his eye level while she speaks. "Whatever space we share will be ours. Not mine."

A gentle breath slips from his lips and Castle's knuckles skim her ribs, palms scale her sides, his hands traveling to converge at the small of her back.

"I love you."

Her heart melts every time he says it and she hopes that never changes, hopes that those words will always instill butterflies in her chest and liquid fire low in her abdomen.

Kate draws her hands down his chest, flicking open buttons in her downwards descent to the waistband of his slacks, where she frees him of his shirt and pushes it from his shoulders.

"I love you too," she whispers back, quite addicted to saying those words herself, enraptured by the the beautiful sense of freedom they fill her with.

Castle helps rid her of her own shirt, caressing each newly exposed expanse of bare flesh with reverent hands, lingering on the bullet scar between her breasts, just as he had the night before, lowering his lips and dusting a kiss to the uneven mark.

"Castle," she murmurs, carding her fingers through his hair as his cheek nuzzles the swell of a breast, his stubble abrading her sensitive flesh. "I don't think I need to borrow any clothes."

Rick nods, abandoning her chest to lift her in his arms, carry her the few feet of space that separates them from the bed, and lowering her to the mattress. She allows him to finish undressing and then she's tugging her husband down atop her, savoring the warm weight of him pressing her down into his bed for the first time.

* * *

_Roaming Vegas together isn't what she had flown to the city with the intention of doing, but Castle makes it enjoyable enough, walking through the strip with her, cracking jokes and eliciting quiet peels of laughter she buries in his shoulder. He's had a bit to drink since he arrived earlier in the day, and she has no intention of catching up, but they do share a couple of glasses of wine together over dinner, sample some whiskey at the bar afterwards and well... maybe she is feeling pleasantly buzzed and a little too chatty._

_"Castle," she hums, looping her arm through his and swaying in close. "We should get married."_

_He chuckles, untangles her arm from his so he can slide it around her waist instead, tug her into his side and out of the flow of foot traffic._

_"How drunk are you, Kate?" he grins, feathering his hands at her waist, still a bit shy of her, wary with his touches, so she pushes up on her toes, layers her body against his._

_"Hardly drunk at all," Beckett murmurs, taking advantage of the height her heels give her and drifting in to drink from his lips._

_"Liar," he huffs, framing her face in those large hands of his, sending lovely bursts of warmth spiraling through her skin._

_"Not anymore," she breathes, nudging her nose against his cheek, even as he chokes on a noise of surprise, one hand falling back to clutch at her waist, to hold her still, hold her close, but she isn't moving. She's where she wants to be. "Not anymore, I want you. I - I love you. Not sharing-"_

_A crumbling laugh escapes his lips and he brushes the stray wisps of her hair from her face with his thumb, cradles her cheek in his palm. "You'll never have to. I'm yours."_

_"Mine," she affirms with a satisfied smile spreading across her lips._

_"We should get married," he repeats her words from minutes before. "Marry me, Kate."_

_Through the thin haze of alcohol, alarm bells sound through her skull, goosebumps rising on her flesh, but she can't help the way her heart exudes glee at the idea, the title of his wife so enticing, the promise of 'for better or for worse' calling to her like it never has before. It may be a bad idea, they may regret it in the morning, but-_

_"Yes," she gasps, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kisses him hard, gliding her tongue past the barrier of his lips and stoking the fire inside his mouth. "I'll marry you."_


End file.
